JAMAICA’s failure to qualify for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the Reggae Boyz’s seventh attempt since their historic debut in France 1998, has led to yet another call for the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) to focus on developing homegrown talent instead of frantically scouring the globe for overseas players with Jamaican lineage.

McKay Security Chief Executive Officer Jason McKay, a major sponsor of the JFF’s South-East Confederation, particularly the Under-17 and Major League competitions in Kingston and St Andrew and St Thomas, believes the France 1998 model of complementing talented local-based players with key overseas talent should be the template going forward.

McKay, who has had the rare distinction of representing Jamaica as an athlete in three separate sporting disciplines — rugby, martial arts, and dragon-boat racing — as well as excelling as a martial arts coach and manager, said the country is not short on young, athletic talent that can be grown, trained and managed to beat the world.

“I would love to see all the Under-20 players, who advanced unbeaten to July’s Concacaf Under-20 Championship, kept together to form a future national senior team,” McKay said during his company’s recent announcement of more than $9.6 million in sponsorship for Kingston and St Andrew and St Thomas Under-17 and Major League competitions.

“Jamaica’s top athletes were all homegrown. In athletics there was Herb McKenley and other forebearers, Donald Quarrie, Bertland Cameron, Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Yohan Blake, Merlene Ottey, Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn, Deon Hemmings-McCatty,Veronica Campbell, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Elaine Thompson-Herah.

“In boxing, we had Michael McCallum, who did his jogging at Caymanas Park. In cricket, we had many greats, Michael Holding, Lawrence Rowe, Jeffrey Dujon, Jimmy Adams, Patrick Patterson.

“There is absolutely no reason why we can’t put together teams of highly skilled, young footballers, who would transition from schoolboy football to represent the JFF as contracted all-star teams in the various Under-20 parish leagues, trained and managed by national coaches in a distinctive Jamaican style, utilising our greatest athletic asset of speed,” McKay stated.

Citing how he formed Jamaica’s combined martial arts team, which went unbeaten in 51 matches on world tours, primarily Asia, including China, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam. McKay said the team was constantly being replenished by inviting fighters from all martial arts schools locally as well as those transitioning from the McKay Security Jamaica Taekwondo High School League.

“It was that system that nurtured martial arts talents such as Olympian Kenneth Edwards, ITF taekwondo Pan-Am gold medallist Nicholas Dusard as well as International Sports Kickboxing Association’s Amateur Members Associations champions, Sheckema Cunningham, Subrina Richards, Ackeem Lawrence, Richard Stone and Akino Lindsay,” all heavily decorated fighters on the world stage,” McKay pointed out.

“There must be a system to harness and manage not just one group of players but multiple national Under-20 teams, one in each parish, ensuring there are options and competition for all positions on the field. I can guarantee we would never have to look overseas for another player,” he added.

Jamaica’s failure to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, set for Mexico, Canada and the United States, left a bitter taste in the mouths of football enthusiasts after being presented with a format that avoided the traditional big guns of Concacaf, the United States, Mexico and Canada, considered the country’s easiest-ever passage.

Calls abound for the resignations of Jamaica Football Federation president Michael Ricketts, who has rebuffed critics by doubling down on his defence of former technical-committee head, Rudolph Speid, who was elevated to interim head coach for Jamaica’s last ditch at qualifying, the FIFA World Cup Play-off, which ended in a 1-0 extra-time loss to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Speid, owner of Jamaica Premier League club Cavalier, had replaced Steve McLaren, who was hired during his tenure as head of the JFF’s technical committee.

MCKAY…there is absolutely no reason why we can’t put together teams of highly skilled, young footballers, who would transition from schoolboy football to represent the JFF .